Outdoor lighting fixtures are commonly used to illuminate streets, highways, and parking lots, among other areas. These lighting fixtures typically include different types of lighting elements such as fluorescent, halogen, or incandescent lights. Beyond consuming a significant amount of power, these roadway fixtures require routine maintenance as light sources generally have only a limited lifetime of operation before burning out. Some new lighting fixtures utilize LED light sources. These lighting fixtures consume lower power and have lower operating expenses because the LED light sources have a significantly longer operating lifetime.
Particularly, with the longer operating lifetimes of the LED light sources, maintenance is required more sparingly to replace the LED light sources, as compared to other light sources. Further, the lower power consumption of the LED light sources leads to lower utility costs. These and other aspects have led to adoption of LED light sources in new lighting fixtures. However, because of differences between the operating characteristics of the LED light sources and the fluorescent, halogen, or incandescent light sources, for example, many features of lighting fixtures that incorporate the LEDs must be redesigned. In this context, new lighting fixtures incorporating design characteristics particularly suited for LED light sources are necessary.
As one design consideration for new LED lighting fixtures, it is noted that advances in the field of LEDs may precipitate early replacement of legacy LED lighting fixtures with new fixtures incorporating LEDs that require less power while providing more lumens of light output, for example. In this context, it is also noted that different LED light sources commonly specify different operating voltage and current ratings. Thus, the replacement of an LED light source in a lighting fixture may require more than merely the replacement of the LED light source itself, because the replacement LED light source will likely require updated driver circuitry to accommodate the particular operating voltage and current ratings of the replacement LED. As it is anticipated that LED light sources of lighting fixtures may be replaced in the future, new lighting fixtures should be designed to offer a simple and effective upgrade path.